VOGONS

Common searches


Technological critique

Topic actions

First post, by dnewhous

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

not a good idea ideas:

I just figured out how to send an image with an SMS message. You have to start the message first, input a destination phone number, and then select add attachment and select camera to use the built in camera.

the cursor highlight in Kindle is whitespace delimited

removal of phono input on home theater receivers
related: why do they sell cartridges without headshells? I don't see how they connect to the tonearm.

VCRs - DVD/VCR without HDMI have a monaural line in, which I just noticed. This means they don't connect to the cable box properly. This stems from a discussion at NHS where they didn't think the word "stereophonic" exists.

Television - having VHF and UHF antennas connect directly to the RF input without an RF connection. Bad idea that confused people.

component video - a bridge technology between S-video and HDMI. It should have been skipped. Unnecessary for 480i. Also, with the ability to run in composite video mode, the damn thing can appear in black in white depending on connection and settings, making it much too hard for most people to understand what it is. Also, the red, Pr, connector can be confused with right audio. Also, that P stands for phase, is obscure.

TV audio in - what a bunch of bullshit that completely confuses people about how a receiver is connected
- similarly, the elimination of s-video. That's how laserdisc players connected and the alternative is to have them connected directly into a HDTV with composite video, using the component video input. A component video input receives composite video in black and white, unless you select composite mode for the component video input. This has led to the misunderstanding that composite video is superior. No, it's not.

screen format - HDTV can handle 16:9 and 4:3 input. Rather than handle them brilliantly, it has this stupid format mode that shouldn't be there.

meanwhile - the computer resolution 1280 by 1024 should never have been used, because it is a 5:4 ratio. The correct resolution, recommended on the web is 1280 by 960, 4:3. It worked, but with monitors made for a slightly different resolution it wasn't as clean as could be.

streaming services on the television - it implies you are going to use the TV speakers and not the main speakers with the streaming service

For generations phono inputs on home stereo amps and receivers provided the RIAA playback curve. This was eliminated, now turntables have to get outboard preamps
and connect to AUX, destroying the vinyl revival.

soundblaster - The fixed IRQ of 7 worked fine, so the set blaster command should never have been created. It sets the IRQ and some have misinterpreted it as setting the HDMA. It is not a part of either a memaker or quarterdeck generated autoexec.bat file, which means it is not supposed to be altered.
I have included the DOSBox -X configuration file as a check on the default IRQ, which is not elucidated in a regular DOS install. The regular DOSBox configuration file is in a hidden directory. Some games like X-Com:UFO defense defaulted the Soundblaster 16 to IRQ 5, which is wrong. A Soundblaster 16 will not work with IRQ 5 at all.
Even worse than assignable IRQ is assignable dma and hdma. There is no need for that. The idea for assignable IRQ may have been to support 24 bit audio. If the MPU-401 had taken up IRQ3, perhaps the Soundblaster under DOS could have assigned IRQ 4 like Windows and supported 24 bit audio.
When you set the soundblaster 16 for IRQ 5, the PC speaker makes a beep on startup that it does not make if the IRQ is on 7 or 9. Some people think this means the soundblaster is working. No, it means the soundblaster 16 defeated and the PC speaker is active.
Also, IRQ 5 could very well be confused with the DOS version annunciation.

The standard IRQ for the MPU-401 was 3 with port 330. But, given that DOSBox -X allows games to be configured for general midi without an IRQ it means that Roland was mistaken to configure an IRQ for the MIDI at all.

Also, some games had secondary IRQ recommendations. Terrible idea that caused too much confusion and was entirely superfluous.
Letdown - the Soundblaster Live's synthesizer had an A|B selection to it that was superfluous and shouldn't have been there.

soundblaster pro - a soundcard with an IDE cable was a terrible idea. They should have skipped this model. The IDE connectors belong on the motherboard. Also, it was clearly an OPL2 card. It sounded inferior to the soundblaster 16. A lot of people can't tell and think the soundblaster 16 is malfunctioning when it is running Adlib/soundblaster MIDI in "compat" mode, which is something that DOSBox and DOSBox -X never implemented.

Certainly the RAM switch was a problem. If you don't have the RAM switch on the EMM386 driver it's preferrable not to use the expanded memory manager altogether. The "RAM" should have always been switched on without a switch. Same with the noems switch.

K, the noems switch was popular with some people even though it was a terrible idea. Noems should never have been an option. That's a Microsoft error. It prevents protected mode, which is needed to increase the resolution from 320 by 240 in DOS to 640 by 480. Memaker and quarterdeck make no use of the noems switch. I remember the quirk of it, it disables the weitek coprocessor. So I think some people wanted to use it to turn off the "math" co-processor. Gods be good, some people think the noems switch on the expanded memory manager is the mouse driver. Not true. "EMS" stands for "expanded memory specification." They (Republicans) think that it makes the cursor blink. It is often confused with MSCDEX, which is for CD/DVD rom drives and was necessary.

If you want to go deeper than this, they could have avoided EMS altogether by making XMS work better on the first pass, but they didn't.

This is not Microsoft's fault. Intel did not design the chipset of the 286-10 adequately.

To get XMS to work with DOS without bothering with EMS, simply put two lines in the config.sys file
device = himem.sys
dos = high

I'm not sure how much mileage you'll get from that but a lot of games worked with XMS without the need for EMS.

Another mistake they made was allowing the operating system binaries to be modified and saved under a different name before DOS 5, where the binaries were locked.

K, ruminating on the DOS->Windows transition I have decided having separate command shells for DOS (command.com) and Windows (cmd.exe) were necessary in indicating that the operating system is truly a kernel based Windows system and not a DOS. What was a confusing holdover was the ability to reboot in command prompt mode that they didn't drop until the transition to Windows NT (Windows XP). My idea, dump the command prompt mode as soon as Windows 95 came out. Also, btw, the ipconfig command does not work in command.com.

Windows made the mistake of having two startup menus available by using the F8 key during startup. The Windows boot menu and the Windows advanced startup menu. They should never have implemented the Windows boot menu, it was totally not necessary.

MATLAB - a Windows program that does not install under Program Files is no excuse for that.

Gamesfest: Forgotten Realms Classic, the original version was missing Blood and Magic. There's a newer 2CD version that I have, but it installs DOS games under Program Files. That does not work. These games are DOS platform, not Windows.

Now I remember there were problems with PINE.

It's formatting marks when your saved messages are in verbose mode are nonstandard escape characters - IBM and Apple use the same escape characters. Unix doesn't. It also allowed the behavior of opening a text file, including your "saved-messages" by the command "Pine textfile". This odd behavior was unnecessary. It is possible to get pine to open a file in your working directory as if it were saved email. Also, by default it worked in text mode, not html mode. Email is fundamentally html, so it needed to default to html mode.

Radioshack mice had alternate drivers with extension .sys rather than .exe that could be loaded by the config.sys file, unlike every other mouse driver that could only be loaded into the autoexec.bat file.
The only software bug I've seen with using a mouse driver in config.sys, which usually isn't allowed, definitely does not work with the DOSShell. The DOSshell is something that was available in DOS and not Windows 3.x, Windows, or Windows NT.
I do recall, in DOS there is a way to check the mouse status. It never validates full functionality with a mouse driver loaded in config.sys, only in autoexec.bat. Before the DOSShell, there was Xtree Gold and Xtree, which are back online. I think originally Xtree Gold was shareware and Xtree was freeware.

mt32 emulator - doesn't work as provided therefore it effectively consistently fails to perform. What was really needed was an Mt-32 soundfont which was available from FMJ. That's what should have been available at the same time as Utopia Live! In the old days. If you want legacy gaming support, the best bet now is a Roland CM-500. But there are places to add soundfont support in DOSBox -X.

What the industry really needs is
1) Get rid of the 65535 parameter limitation
2) Capture Roland SC-D70 (GM2 and GS separately)
3) Capture Roland D-110

VDMSound - consistently fails to perform
note: SoundFX2000 was take it or leave it. It was shareware better than VDMSound, but not reliable enough to compete with DOSBox.

GM / GS SoundFonts vol.1 - missing Utopia Live! I remember, it did have all 6 drum kits of the RAP-10. The SC-880, the outboard module that generally defines GM, has 3 drum kits. The Utopia was missing the TR-808 drum kit which both devices have. After assembling my own LAPC-1 soundfont using a drum kit collection from Amazounds amongst others, I am certain that the TR-808 kit is not for use with MT-32 style MIDI. Also, it is only GS soundsets that include a drum kit for use with MT-32 style MIDI. It is titled "CM-32l/CM-64 kit." It works fine. The DR-110 kit from Amazounds is better than that and the TR-707 drum kit from Amazounds is better than that. That is, for LA synthesis.

Microsoft Editor - this improved version of Edlin was unnecessary. Edlin excelled at replacing autoexec.bat and config.sys with previous versions.

Steinberg Lm-4 format - a text file for a MIDI bank

epic fails - a couple of Windows source code ports did not go as well as they should.

Hubble - the focal length is wrong. Rather than go over detail it should have been designed by the Jet Propulsion laboratory at Caltech.

E-mu - the original soundcard was from IBM. Going with this brand for the soundblaster given the Aberdeen maladjustment they came up with was a mistake.

Solaris - what kind of moron makes an operating system with a delete permission on each file and sets the delete permission to on by default? Horrible! But, the O/S is capable of using the IBM music feature card!
The idea behind UNIX is instead of a workstation for each user, you get a terminal. The problem is that Solaris allowed people to peek into other people's working directory, since they were all on the same networked hard drive. Also, Pine was default text mode when it needed to be default html.

Roland MPU-401 - choice of IRQ 3 instead of IRQ less operation would spawn the dreadful set blaster command. The General MIDI option in XCom in DOSBox -X does not need an IRQ to work.

286 - 10 - EMS (expanded memory specification) made necessary by defective Intel chipset that was companion to 286-10 release

soundblaster pro - IDE connection on the soundcard, otherwise the same sound as a soundblaster. The IDE connection is just plain wrong. The second problem that was introduced is the assignable dma and hdma, those only take 1 working value. That should never have been done. The assignable IRQ is debatable, perhaps needed to support 24 bit audio. The introduction of the Soundblaster Pro has led to the aberdeen maladjustment, which is the insistance that Soundblaster soundcards be set in IRQ 5, which is terrible. It may also be a confusion with the DOS version annunciation, since DOS 5 introduced the expanded memory manager without memaker. It works on the Soundblaster Pro, but not the Soundblaster 16. The default IRQ of the soundblaster was 7.

The reason conservatives think the assignment set blaster = 5 is successful is that DOS responds , on a machine without a soundblaster, with a "...cannot acknowledge..." message. They think this is Christian because they think the
computer is denying the concept of "consent." This only happend in DOS 4. DOS 5 and later, if there were no soundblaster, the result would be an expanded memory manager error.
Most people resolved this by running the game in soundblaster pro mode.
Also, the effect of the Aberdeen maladjustment is limited because the PC speaker still works as a failsafe.

MSDOS 4.01 - disaster - was vendor specific, which made the DOS startup annunciation vendor specific, which made all later version of DOS, which are strictly Microsoft, look defective by comparison. It's much better if every version of DOS has the same vendor - "Microsoft."

Radio Shack mouse - included a mouse.sys file so that you can load the mouse driver in either autoexe.cat with mouse.exe or the config.sys file with mouse.sys. A mistake because the config.sys version is buggy.

ramdrive - introduced DOS 3.2 and is a terrible idea

Noems - introduced in DOS 5.0, this switch just disables the expanded memory manager

himem.sys - this came out after EMM386.exe and enables extended memory. This should have been in DOS 5 and EMM386.exe in DOS 6.
Wing Commander - the special missions transfer function leads to the bizarre effect of your wingmates disappearing. It's severe if you transfer from WC to SM1 to SM2.
Kilrathi saga - IFF system when flying captured Dralthi doesn't work with the Hriss that you are supposed to pass up. This game is a source code port from DOS.
Kenwood KS170 - oldie but goodie, this cassette player had an overloud headphone output that we never got fixed because we could never get the Russells to fuck off so we could figure out what fixing meant and where to get it done
In fact, the error was quite dangerous.
Windows 95 - reboot in command prompt mode should have been forbidden and MSDOS clearly replaced by a VDM.
Soundblaster Live - the split operation of the MIDI synthesizer into A and B devices is absurd.
zip drive - we needed superdisk or megadisk technology. Zip drive is a floppy that fits in a 51/4" bay. Ludicrous. According to the wikipedia, they have got experimental superdisk to work! But it is not available.
Space Quest Collection - 2006 and a Windows port where the Saurian Skull Droid is inescapable.
FF7 Windows - supporting the AWE32 instead of simply directsound/directmusic is DOSy. There shoudln't have been anything DOSy about this release. Eventually led to FF7 the remake. Available on steam.
FF8 Windows - the use of a DLS file for the BGM is called into question. Eventually led to FF8 remastered. Available on Steam
ADA 885/890 - the quad mode mostly fails. There is somewhat of a workaround if you use Dolby Digital mode with PCM stereo in the digital input, followed by quad mode where the front speakers use the digital input and the rear
the analog input.

All this is why I'm a socialist. Yes, we do need the government to pick winners and losers and some kind of central planning!

Also, the industry never settled on what hardware it should use to transfer the MIDI music to modern audio. It looks like it should be the Roland SD-70 for sound canvas and the Roland D-110 for LAPC-I.

Now, they've made up for it by the FF7 remake and the FF8 remaster. I thought the FF8 remaster was just a Steam gimmick but apparently it was released on PS4.

.ecw soundbanks from Ensoniq were a terrible idea. Roland had DLS and Emu had sf2. Why a new low quality piece of junk? Terrible idea. They were bought by CT and used on vibra cards through Dell (I had one).

Removing floppy disks from PCs. If it weren't for the legacy software, I wouldn't care. There are a lot of old titles that would be more utile, that is people would them useful and convenient. If you're going to keep this technology, you might as well have subsumed it into zip disks. That way, there is always an A: drive.

Snagit - it disables the basic Alt-Print screen functionality that comes with Windows. The best alternative so far is Greenshot, unless a business licenses Printkey Pro. note: Greenshot has a copy to clipboard button to get the default Windows functionality.

Windows NT 4 could download IE 6. Bad idea.

removal of Windows MIDI control panel
Yamaha pulled the SW1000XG off the market when this was done. Symbolically, it means neutered Windows can't run synthesizer PCI cards.

Companies too cheap to put Adobe Acrobat on every workstation.

subscription service - iTunes and Auctiva. They were much better when they were fee for service.

cassette players - given what happened with Dolby expiring, this technology is really gone and it doesn't look as if anyone particularly misses it. Could microcassettes have been long enough? Delicate sound of Thunder clocks in at 104:08. Ozzy Live and Loud at 117:16. Beast over Hammersmith 95:31. Live after Death 98:09. How the West was Won 150:27. Pulse 147:59. I thought that would be the outlier. The Song Remains the Same 125:30.

So, no, microcassettes could not have been long enough.

More importantly the universal "auto stop" feature was unreliable and led to "insta flower" tape stretching, or at least some slack. Our tape players had to be modified.
Also, the headphone jack on tape decks was too loud. By way of comparison the max output on a TI INA1620 is 280 mW. Before typical power would be ~138 mW.
Here's the deal, looking up the TI INA1620, it is a technological breakthrough! Bipolar headphone amplifier!

Another gripe, Pink Floyd is labeled "progressive rock." Wasn't the term once "avant garde?"

Kenwood car stereo speakers - I once heard a 4 way $100 pair that had better sound than anything I have ever heard. They're gone.

invention of C sharp
C++ is the obvious choice for video games and even TCP/IP is doable in C++. WPF does not look as good as MFC.
This implies pdf Creator is a waste of time and it is.

discarding digital audio disc - this format was standard audio and not in "advanced audio engineering" zone.

The Turtle Beach Santa Cruz - this thing was the basis of audio support on the original Xbox so it does matter
problem - the pins on the internal S/PDIF connector were backward
problem - the microphone connector provided 3.5 volts of bias instead of 5
problem - the red S/PDIF output was defective when used for stereo LPCM.

Oh, yeah, the m-audio revolution 5.1 had the left and right reversed on the headphone output

this reminds me

Altec Lansing ADA 890 - the failure of the quad mode is a technological embarassment of epic proportions
https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-ca/drive … driverid=r37890

the dismissal of Sensaura makes it look like there was no competitor for the Xbox to reach out to. They still have a wikipedia page. Sensaura also could have been used for other virtual surround.

Use of Soundblaster Live Value! This card came with Gateway computers and is I couldn't get the 3d audio effects to work, it is a budget version of a Live!
Vienna soundfont studio was ruined because it only worked with aftermarket cards and couldn't work with sbk soundfonts, and there was once some interest in synthmt.sbk.

Multichannel audio on onboard audio. This caused confusion with the soundcards. The current generation of Soundblaster doesn't use EAX, and without that who cares?

Allowing games to provide surround sound - this totally took away from the use of the soundcard, led to much confusion, and the demise of EAX.

Dismissal of Groove Music - it's the only player that would flip the image to the album artist.

preset tuning - this is relevant to old cable ready VRCRs. It was originally 13 (ahem 12) channels when universal cable VCRs came out, imitating VHF reception, this feature I think had 13 channels. Not available on newer cable ready VCRs.

Beyerdynamic MMX300 the instructions have the adapter for PC gaming and game consoles backwards
Audio Technica ATH-AG1X has a short circuit on the headphone and the microphone connector

Polk Audio db Series defunct. These speakers were shallow enough to be drop in replacements for OEM speakers. They were good. I miss them. This puts an
incentive to get a speaker upgrade when you buy the car. Polk had more expensive speakers than that, but after looking at it I lost interest in anything else.

Sparkomatic car stereo speakers dismissed from market - cheapest good sounding car speakers. I forgot them. Very good. Have had them and Polks.

Universal remote controls - I've bought them from Best Buy and Crutchfield and they do not work with subtitles.

The loss of HP laserjet paper.

phone cords like Blue Jeans cable - with crimper. Unneeded and annoying.

anti spam Captcha - get this shit off the web!

they maintain an RF connection despite the fact that it is completely obsolete.

Adobe Photoshop - used to be able to acquire from a scanner. It also had OCR. Functionality replaced by PaperScan.
The decline of Photoshop makes me wonder what led to the end of Fedex Office.
AppleWorks dropped - so was Microsoft Works
Daisy Wheel Printer - missing image
Scribe - missing description
Apple gameport - rather nice really, and has 3 rows of pins, more than for the PC. I think only 14 pins are used, to prevent it from becoming a MIDI adapter. I think it is 21 pin places.
FedEx Office - in addition to apple related mischief maybe they could offer photo lab services like printing an image on photo quality paper for storage in a photo album or a photo journal.

unrelated to apple again:
OpenGlide - fail with Carmageddon II, try a DirectShow window, which would require rescaling the overall resolution because the resolution would probably come out much too large.

Nexxus - online periodical search is gone.

Element Cable - blue, custom length power cables. Yes, you can pick up long length cables from Guitar Center or the like, but it's not the same thing.

Apple's fundamental error: In operand zero - the indication of a bad connection. Arguably, there shouldn't be any indication, just a
bad connection when there is a bad connection.

HDTV - the default HD size does not display the entire image - annoying, you need to select the expanded image under aspect adjustments, unfortunately, the zoomed image is "normal," which is a terrible use of the word.

DOS - batch files do not work without the ".bat" extension.

DOS - inclusion of Microsoft editor was unneeded. Edlin was fine.

DOS - dos = umb statement does not result in the message "DOS is resident in upper memory area" in DOS 6.22. This is a bug. It merely says "DOS is resident in high memory area."

OSP - beginning with the migration away from dial up service to high speed internet, companies like AOL were found wanting. They tried to turn themselves into web portals instead of ISP, which brought to mind the question of whether OSP would provide exclusive content. This should never have been allowed. What the hell was earthlink doing with advertisements saying contact your ISP. Utterly ridiculous. I suppose the rationale was that it might provide a consistent email address when upgrading from dial up service to high speed service. It was kind of bogus.

ISP - the problem is that we needed to get our dial up service from our local phone company, and in our area, something went wrong.

dial up service that is a companion to high speed internet. This totally confused the issue of what the service is that is being offered.

modem - head to head playing over the internet, via direct dial modem connection. Unfortunately, it implies that the internet can be used without an ISP, which is unacceptable.
The hot seat setting is when all players use the same computer, taking turns. It is confusing, and should not have been used.
null modem - head to head over null modem. Not bad, but null modem cables were hard to come by, so you use a lot of adapters that make it sporadic. Also, confused with network over LAN.

All that may have sucked, but webmail did not suck. It was an early, good idea.

Also, the wikipedia is indicating that they are trying to use the DI-9 Mac Connect with the 8 pin LocalTalk? As Bill the Cat once said,
"tthhhpppppttttt."
Also, even if there were to fit a square peg in a round hole, connecting a printer to a network doesn't do any good unless the printer is
network ready. If not, the printer won't know what to do with a network signal anyway!

The wikipedia has lost so many pages and left so many pages out!

Things missing from the wikipedia

wikipedia: removal of page dedicated to cm-32l. I have used one! They didn't skrag this model, did they? This could ruin keyboards.
Electrical specifications of MIDI metasmatized. It is like they are confusing MIDI cables for audio cables. This is loss of technology.
Amplifier - switched mode power outlet could be mentioned
history of cable TV - 8 phases and 4 output modes. I checked and I saw that some 4k content has already been broadcast
VCR - could mention auto tracking
Also, forward and reverse scene selection which is also referred to as forward and reverse picture search
one touch recording
auto clock
smart channel mapping - this is a later feature that involves a zip code and I never have encountered it
Soundblaster 16 - bad image
Soundblaster 16 Waveffects - bad image
Waveblaster - bad image
Soundblaster Live Value! - a very important version and distinct on the creative support site, should be covered.
3.5mm jack - bad image
gameport to MIDI cable - how about an image of one
Utopia Live and Synergi - sites remembering the glory and the grandeur?
auto reverse - this is now an entry in Merriam-Webster online. Pertains to audiocassettes. Basic, really. It had 3 submodes.
One of those submodes is standard play. When in standard play auto reverse is off and playback falls back on the bidirectional replay capability
The other mode is auto repeat.
bidirectional replay capability - a closely related feature to auto reverse
160kHz Super Bias Electronics - this used to be described on the wikipedia, it's for cassette players, does this feature take the place of an MPX filter?
MPX filter - attempt to repress the bias frequency altogether. Found on PIoneer players.
Nakamichi Automatic Azimuth Correction - this could easily be taken as the best brand if it weren't for super bias. I suppose it's an interesting feature I found while googling
rewind auto play - an audiocassette feature I never knew about until I read a description of a Pioneer player
automatic distortion reduction - Akai feature
spring loaded tape holder - Kenwood feature
bias frequency should be a searchable selection under Tape bias. Maybe it should be called pilot tone?
Master tape - there is an entry, but the information on tape bias is missing
remix - a remaster is described, but not a remix
Scotch - I used to use this brand of video tape. I didn't know they made audio cassettes.
Axiomatic bias frequency - needs to be defined on the wikipedia.
Universal remote control - doesn't describe common controls such as play, stop, and subtitles.
RIAA equalization - no clear cut terminology such as RIAA replay curve well defined
fader - for consumer electronics the definition for every car stereo is missing.
device driver - no discussion of where to download for your interested technology
rj 11/14 - not enough of a description to be clear, there is a power connection on a phone cable, and it isn't made clear, one of them, IIRC is the "backlight" connector.
Dolby Virtual Speaker - still has a FAQ with Cyberlink, ought to have a wikipedia page.
HRTF needs to be related to psychoacoustics on wikipedia
Defunct companies ART (Advanced Research Technology) and Digitech don't have wikipedia pages, I used to own some of their gear
Turtle Beach - I've bought this brand and they carry their products at Walmart!
network ready - found the term on the web, but not the wikipedia
photocopy - defined in the dictionary, not the wikipedia
Creative Wave Blaster - nice page but it needs a subtopic for the connector and not just a pinout.
Digital Audio Extraction - its for playback, not just for ripping
LaserDisc - Pioneer was the first to call the format LaserDisc but Sony produced Laservision with CD quality audio in Japan before Pioneer did. Yes, Iron Maiden's Live after Death is an outlier that made me wonder about Pioneer's dominance. K, I found something from Pioneer without digital sound, it is still called a Laserdisc. The original technology is called MCA Discovision according to the wikipedia.
https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/31502/96LS-200 … Slavery-Tour-85
The LDDB clearly indicates that there were 1984 Pioneer Laserdisc that had digital sound. Neil Young for instance. This was not at all clear before - they've done a lot of work with new images and details.
variation effects - companion to reverbation.
lack of description of MIDI adapter cable
stereophonic sound - really needs a mention of stereo audio cables.
MTV - a discussion of their implementation of stereo sound
output level - a description of the output level for headphones and speakers should be distinguished from live level
Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) - good entry, but it needs something about bad or missing ntos_krnl.dll. That error leads to hard drive failure. The modern version of the error in Windows help is
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.
This is not good enough, it is a hard drive failure.
mobile phone - no acknowledgment that a cell phone run on electricity
service carrier - a company that manages a cell phone service account
account - cell phone, there are 4 account types listed on the wikipedia, obviously cell phone account needs to be one of them.
swap(ping) - cell phones can be swapped. No explanation here.
Kaspersky IS - rpt file should be explained
access point - Defined under wireless access point. Deserves better.
MAC - of course it is a NIC, it is also an access point and I didn't know that until I looked at the stickers on my modem.

auto preset - this is relevant for older, cable ready televisions and universal cable VCRs. Also,
auto tuning - which is an older, slower version of auto preset. Auto tuning was 103 channels, auto preset is 99.
channel auto set - This is the VCR equivalent of auto preset for universal cable VCRs. 99 channels for analog. Up to 115 to include digital.
auto tracking - relevant for VCRs
auto fine tuning - relevant for older televisions, it's a single button
fine adjust - an old button that adjusts the color and tint settings automatically
manual tuning - at the time that TVs had auto tuning, I remember 115 channels available for manual tuning. At the time of 13 preset channels on VCRs, I remember 13 channels available for manual tuning. Presumably, for
UHF - channel 14 to 103 channels on the dial
TVs the number of channels went down and for VCRs it went up.
cable converter box - missing "surround sound" which is a standard feature on all modern boxes, but this had not always been so
Ctrl+Alt+Del = different effects on different systems
printer paper - dot matrix printers use continuous form paper, they still make it and they used to make a type that peeled and was annoying. Ah, carbonless continuous paper.
LA synthesis is a form of sample based synthesis and this may or may not have been mentioned on the wikipedia before.
FM radio - analog FM used 300 ohms as the standard impedance. I remember this from a Kenwood tuner. HDFM is 75 ohms, like a digital audio connection.
WAN - wide area network, the term brings up the disambiguation page rather than the definition
ODM - original design manufacturer, brings up the disambiguation page
Gator Radio Network - deserves props.
turntable strobe - this is a device that Crosley used
stereo indicator - for Sony VCRs
OTR
4 track cassette - should be an explanation as to how and why audio cassettes are sometimes used this way
save disk
boot disk
remote desktop services
system freeze
PROMPT command in DOS

urban dictionary:
OTR
MAC
WAN
ODM
distro (Linux distribution)
bedwetting - what tech support does when they don't know how to solve the problem

Visual Studio 2019 appears to have dropped MFC applications. And Visual C++ has dropped the DirectXSDK. So Visual C++ is useful now neither for desktop applications nor for video games. But I don't have the professional version.

things that were not done well enough or done on time

telephone (landline) - why aren't SMS message available? Why can't the caller ID log take power off of the phone line?

radio receiver - Analog AM has the problem that pin dot pre tuning drifts. The pin dot pretuning should have been engineered as part of AM from the beginning. AM should have been mono.
Analog FM because automuting is a nuisance should have been engineered so that automuting would be redundant.

Blu ray encryption - Meridian should have been part of the Blu ray Disc Association because they have the best encryption technology.
DVD - could have limited ripping to 640 by 480 at 24 fps. In fact, could have limited DVD and Blu ray to the same resolution for ripping.

textile printing - the more advanced technology is laser screen.

CD players - maybe they could have waited for a 48kHz sampling frequency, then there wouldn't be dedicated resampling Integrated Circuits.

USB should have been available as soon as the PCI bus was available and no game port should have been used anymore

synthetic stereo - Kenwood gimic for monaural VCRs. Yes, it improved the sound but it confused people. It might have worked had it made the left and right channels balanced.

Images on the wikipedia now resize when selected, but this should have been done from the beginning.

Roboform - there is now a print function. Having that before would have saved me a lot of grief.
Also, having it web based would have saved me a lot of grief.
Also, never deleting the MRU menu would have saved a lot of grief.
The password generator does not work correctly for numbers only, not excluding duplicate numbers.

quarterdeck - the Windows 98 version of this came out much too late.

network over LAN - Master of Orion2 - doesn't work easily over a pier to pier network, it is designed for client/server network, as described in the instructions on p 156. No excuses, it should have recognized a pier to pier network easily.

graphical widget - now defined on the wikipedia

The kernel was once a dll and is now an executable. The kernel is an entirely separate process. Now? Dumb and dumber that could have done a long time ago. This should make it much harder to crash Windows.

CassetteDeck.org - there was an older site with more complete information than this, the reference unit is the Sony TC-WA9ES

The loss of compact stereos. The best brand was Aiwa, I used a Philips back in the day. They are back with Denon, but they've been away for a while.

35 mm slide scanner from Plustek - has come out after nobody makes analog cameras anymore. You would really need an analog camera to get the proper picture. I have found some old 35 mm slides and they do look marvelous. I think this technology has renewed interest because of AP art classes producing a lot of 35 mm slides. At least, that's what I got out of reading their description. Bring back the dead? Another reason this field could use some work is that cameras don't use lossless files, png or tif are what I've used in the workplace. Preferably png (lossless compressed, under ISO standards). Now that I look up the availability, forget the Plustek scanners. Wait, looking at the wrong models. The models that use Silverfast and produce 48 bit color do exist.

satellite radio

They did not choose an adequate modulation scheme to get the bit rates they needed. They really needed to broadcast at 48 kpbs to get above the hard of hearing
audio fidelity threshold. At these bit rates HE-AACv1 is good enough, they don't need to wait until HE-AACv2. In fact, at 56 kbps, the music is ameliorative to human hearing. That's also the bit rate at which AAC encoders switch off SBR.

HD radio

First off, the bit rate is supposed to go up when analog is retired. What about surround sound? A modulation scheme to allow for AC-4 would be the greatest in joke in history, but it wouldn't be good enough at a minimum of 192 kpbs, it would not allow for multicasting. ADTS does have the feature we need, arbitrary bit rates and variable frame length. I swear I have seen a study, that said 97 kbps was the rate at which surround sound is ameliorative to human hearing.
Then do we want to compromise surround sound with the fader bucket? If no, to broadcast virtual surround you need some sort of psychoacoustics. Dolby, DTS, QSound, or even Creative Technology could do this. I suppose the default would be QSound.

Basically, you need surround sound and multicasting for HD-radio to work. That would limit it to 3 multichannels per station, not 4 as presently allowed.

Which is where demise of DVD-Audio comes in. That's the source they needed for surround sound radio, and without that we have multicasting of stereo instead. The sampling frequency was 96 kHz v 384 kHz with SACD.

Surround sound music implies a remix of the original music. It has been done.

The thing is, archiving an .mlp file which is what's on a DVD -audio involves revealing the secret key to the best encryption system in the world. So maybe the better idea would be to use digital audio disc in stereo, and encode that in AC-4 straight from a 24 bit/96 kHz source. I'm sure dbPoweramp could be easily adjusted.

The thing is, the #2 and #3 home receiver makers (McIntosh and Denon) are ignoring HD radio. If they hadn't ignored HD Radio then I wouldn't have this thread. Krell, the top brand is meant to be used with Magnum Dynalab tuners.

I see, they want you to buy the Sangean HDT-20. It's an HD tuner.

Also, I forgot the problem of HD-AM being low bit rate. Advanced Audio Coding has a speech profile. Whatever happened to HD AM, it's been changed and I have no idea a realistic bit rate.

Betamax - the problem with this format is not its image quality. What happened was that Beta went from a format that rented the best movies to a format that rented the same titles that VHS did, while charging a higher price. Betamax carried movies from Cinemax, which in the early 80s were better than HBO. When they started carrying the same insipid titles everyone else did, they disappeared. I remember looking through the premium channel movie guide for cable and all the interesting movies were on Cinemax. I remember Betamax tapes had blue cases and were more popular some of the time I went to the video store - a name I can't remember! We did eventually get HBO for a while.

That is not to say VHS was a terrible choice. SVHS was better than Super Betamax. But now that I am reviewing the SVHS page, not as good as ED(extended definition)-Beta. And JVC tapes, which I had to order, were T-210, which is long enough for a football game. I did find something too long for VHS, Hamlet (1996). Also, Lawrence of Arabia. Ben-hur. The Ten Commandments, and the Fall of the Roman Empire.
JVC owns the technology behind VHS.

A little later than it should have been - Klipsch Promedia dumps BASH amps in favor of toroids. A little late. It comes after they issued a Bluetooth version of their speakers.

bulletin board technology - some things that are improved that could have been done better in the first place

1) list of posts made on a bulletin board
2) attachments have improved
3) auto citation

mirrored images are where bulletin boards have dropped the ball completely
OOps, mirroring works fine. The term I want is "shoehorning" an image, that is hard now.

Copying and pasting is still a mess. It needs to be done in the target format, not the origin format.

auto clock on VCRs. An old feature but it would have been nice to have had it sooner.

19 micron head technology. This would have made auto tracking quicker.
10 micron head technology - no need for SVHS - ET. I think only Panasonic used this. It would allow SVHS recordings to be usable on VHS VCRs.

VCR tuners that could cover digital channels - I just tried a VCR like that recently. A Panasonic. Apparently you need to span 115 channels, not just 99 to keep naysayers at bay.

high speed internet - needed it before I started college, that means NIC. The Linksys and 3Com PCI network cards I tried would freeze up the computer after a few hours of web surfing.
Also, direct internet access could have been the standard at major universities! I haven't checked the detail, but when I got to Illinois at Urbana Champaign, they had an internet connection
that was stupefying. I swear they had DIA back in the 80s.

Printkey Pro - this is needed in the commercial/enterprise environment because it can capture at twice screen resolution. This means you can click to resize. I think that I used a trial version once at work when I got it confused with Printkey 2000, which was on the intranet. I prefer Greenshot for the home.

HD TV - the default image size is super zoomed. This default setting is no longer available. This should have done from the beginning.

Cell phones with phone numbers on the outside.

MSDOS 7.10 should have been available with Windows95 from the beginning. It made Joliet file naming awkward. Remember how DOS named the program files folder progra~1? And nobody wanted to use the command prompt any more? They got rid of command.com and have replaced it with DOSBox -X but it isn't quite the same thing.

DirectShow - the most fundamental of the advanced APIs this is the one needed for movie playback and browser plugins
Also, DirectMusic - this should have been available with DirectShow launch so high res music worked on Windows
DirectInput - not available until XP it would have meant controllers could work on the PC and the original Xbox.

DOORs should have integrated export to pdf before version 9.

Something that used to work better and has been dropped - associating a URL with a mirrored image. Support for this is gone.

I would have like landlines better than cable phone - but they didn't wire up every bedroom.

Netbeans - now that it has integrated Oracle and html5, the IDE makes Solaris, which is the fundamental platform for Java, look sexier than Linux, which has lost Qt as a development platform. Well, it got bought by Microsoft, and it isn't doing anything. It's platform of origin is SUSE Linux. Plasma desktop.

Archive folder - should have been added to Outlook years ago.

USB C - a miniUSB connector that is a little bit easier to find than mini USB which looked too much like iLink. Is this for PAP? Maybe that would have helped the industry. It is used for USB hubs.
COWON - by having a proprietary mini USB that didn't fit standard USB really killed their brand. It's a shame.

web through HDMI - so you don't need a LAN connection between the cable box and the blu ray player. What is semi-available is wi-fi from your cable box. It is also available from the modem. But that is SSID protected. It doesn't work. But it is there.

cell phone - the batteries take much too long to charge.

fax from home - didn't work because BVRP phone tools that came with Dell computers did not survive Windows updates. The functionality is integrated with Windows now, but multifunction printers no longer come with 2 rj11 connectors.

Radioshack: Product availability. Phones and null modem cables. There are times they weren't equipped. Are they insane?

things inadequate:
cygwin does not support ifconfig or iostat. It used to do that.

Some good technological decisions

1) DOSBox, especially including a Tandy mode with the speaker
2) Windows included a default softsynth. This means the Windows MIDI interface is always there and is undeniable and there is something to check against.
3) the Santa Cruz could use GM.DLS
4) Wikipedia page on MIDI now puts the years back far enough to be real, the Yamaha DX-7 (1983) had MIDI connectors and has been in music videos.
5) the pinout of the sync DIN on the wikipedia
6) retiring the VDM from Windows
7) Soundblaster MIDI synthesis is no longer emulated in DOSBox.
😎 Microsoft Office supporting the Mathtype plugin.
9) The MathType plugin supporting teX characters. Sorry Unix.
10) Awave Studio - lets you take your MIDI bank and change formats
11) Laser turntable by EMT and the return of 78 rpm by Audio Technica.
12) Polk Audio home stereo speakers. They really have good price/performance
13) USB hubs on flat panels - I plug my keyboard and mouse into my monitor. Better than wireless.
14) Denon is back, with better receivers than Onkyo or Integra.
15) Macrovision - recording from an analog video signal made impossible
16) Soundcards with dedicated headphone outputs
17) ImageWriter - the only printers for Apple II that were any good are still available on ebay. Oops, the wikipedia has some good info, before ImageWriter there was Scribe. I remember having one of those. There were LaserWriters I couldn't afford and Stylewriters that came out in 1993 that I didn't know about.
18) Adobe Incopy - it integrates with InDesign so it gets MathType too
19) musician's earplugs
20) Microchip Technologies makes inexpensive Digital Signal Controllers, like $5.13 for a dual core.
21) Microsoft bought Ada and changed the syntax so that polymorphism is intelligible. Now I understand that you can't pass user defined types by reference. I never have used polymorphism is Ada and I never figured out what the limitation was before GNAT dropped it.
22) Tinactin, Lamisil, and Neosporin which are fighting my croch rot.
23) Yamaha - THX certified mixing consoles has increased interest in their recording studio speakers which are becoming an industry standard. The MSP7 are THX certified themselves.
24) Apple iWork - now that I look into this, it lives and is freeware. I haven't tried it, but I bet it's better than OpenOffice. Yech. Oh, it's Mac OS only.
25) DAE - digital audio extraction - not introduced until Windows 98 second edition. Takes the place of the internal S/PDIF connector on a soundcard.
26) RDSC data - forget HD radio for a little bit, RDSC data allows listeners to check artist and song title and figure out which songs are the ones they've always hated and send secret messages to the DJ about what they do and
don't like
27) Description of tape types - has been there a few months and I didn't know the search starts with "compact cassette" which is what audiocassettes were technically called
28) double cylinder deadbolt
29) fax function in multifunction printers - kiss analog fax/modems goodbye as well as attendant software, such as BVRP phone tools.
30) dumping analog TV and digital cable that isn't high definition. About time. Could have been done before Battlestar Galactica. This means that the TV ANT has nothing to tune to.
31) Dumping MM (moving magnet) cartridges.
32) Crosley is back in the turntable market.
33) Blue jeans cable RF cables - they fit easily unlike the cheapest RF cables and the gold is on the inside of the connector, so there is nothing making them obviously ostentatious.
34) screen resolution. Believe it or not, the way the science comes out the resolution for HDTV was chosen so that the aspect ratio could be flexible. Different aspect ratios for computer, TV, and I think microscope.
35) Windows has a universal mouse driver - this makes servicing easier
36) adjust shade of sidebars
37) putty still has rlogin, which I swear is the only thing that works
38) TI has invented bipolar headphone amplifiers. Great!

Last part:
high voltage technology
Something we need to do - for the sake of picture quality everywhere - is jack the voltage up to 512 volts for our homes. If I'm not mistaken the Sony standard is to withstand voltages up to 513 volts. Everything should still work fine. We need 512 volts for high quality DLP (which may be projected) and 500 volts for high quality LCD (the contrast ratio is limited). For computers, 35 volts would liberate FPGAs (which appear to be defunct) to do resampling to 96 kHz without overheating, allow low current architecture in CPU design, and I'm sure some other benefits. We don't need anything more than 5 volts on the PCI bus. Which is where we are.

I may point out that voltage at the source is not necessarily voltage at delivery. You can set the voltage at the power plant different from what's in a home. The power lines themselves are extremely high voltage.

35 volts would probably work better in a car. And a plane. And a soundcard because of the headphone output.

There are thermal minima at 14,000 and 3million+ volts. This is known, however, when the power lines are pushed to above 3 million volts the power sub-station here in northwest Florida starts to fart out. We can't get our
power grid up to the 3 million+ volt thermal minima.

Now I remember, it may be risky, but the universal thermal minimum is at 532 volts. Useful for cryo experiments. Optimal refresh 52.4 Hz IIRC. Or 52.394 Hz.

K, from what I remember, to get Plasma screen to work properly, they reportedly need 512.1 volts to get them to be bright enough. I think that number is ghey, and some sort of falsification. Like, get it to work without the .1 volts. Debatable.

Also, the impedance for speaker matching IMO should be 300 ohm. Both speaker and amplifier. For home theater. For guitar speakers, it may change the sound so radically I don't know. Everyone likes their 8 ohm full stacks.

Eight ohms is fine for line level output, which makes me think someone got the spec backwards long ago when they started making home stereo equipment.

75 ohm is supposed to be for digital audio and analog video connections.

These impedance numbers are supposed to come from transmission line theory, which I never understood. Because I don't think it was taught well. Anyway, it's not just high frequency (digital audio/video, analog video) that need to be analyzed, it's anything output level. Amplifier and headphone connections are high current enough that transmission line theory needs to be used. The analysis which I read somewhere is that at 8 ohms a lot of heat is generated on the cable.

yin and yang - Breeder reactors. As described on the wikipedia the technology is impressive. Used quite a bit in France. Do we really need it? They've adapted nuclear cooling towers to coal and with geothermal I don't see why we need nuclear. I've seen wind farms too. Unless we want to recharge out battery operated Enterprise for another round of battle with the Klingons I don't see that we need anywhere near the electricity that a plant like this is capable of generating.

losttech PTY - program type. This is the indicator in the RDS data that tells you the genre of the station. It may sound boring, but now that I have accurately observed a list of radio stations available on my tuner in a Mitsubishi Outlander I can see how this bit of information is sorely missed. Generally, you get the frequency, optionally station identification such as "99 rock" and then some indicator of HD status such as "HD 1" or "HD n" where n can be up to 4. Typically, though, they seam to broadcast HD FM in groups of 3. Now that I have a Denon and I can hit the autotune preset button, this feature is even more missed.

Also, there was supposed to be a way to search from station to station for a subset of genres, divided into about 8. I think it was supposed to be a separate beacon or something broadcasting from each station. Between this technology and RBDS I think HD Radio was born. I forget what the technology was called.

Also, subwoofers. The crossover frequency is based on HRTF functions or something. I mean, it is based on the notion that we can't hear stereo separation below 80 Hz. Bah, humbug it is too high. It should have put at 55 Hz which is below low 'B' on an alto guitar and matches some Celestion and Electrovoice loudspeaker designs. You don't want your fundamental tone coming out the subwoofer if you are a guitar player. That's cheesy. If you really want to be scientific about this, the question would be which crossover frequency is the most ameliorative to human hearing? I don't know.

If a speaker had a resonance frequency of 52.394, maybe it would minimize excursion, which is the safest design, and simplify design of the voice coil. If you've forgotten, that's the suggested frequency for the power grid.

Also, since I regard the transmission line theory that I only partially learned (I realized you can model an "extremely high impedance" as an open circuit) the way to model impedance transformers would be as an intermediate impedance between two mismatched impedances. For those who find that confusion the point is that cable designs have intrinsic impedances for AC signals. The two numbers that fall out the most are 300 for dual wire and 75 ohm for coaxial.

The only other thing that transmission line theory needs to explain is RG59 v RG6 cable. RG59 has greater capacitive losses (its more flexible) and is therefore less suitable to broadcast television that RG6 cable. That's the part of the model the transmission line theory is trying to look at and generally doesn't illustrate it very well.

Something else I do know, that has nothing to do with my experiences, you need a phase locked loop to handle asynchronous timing. Which makes me wonder if the quest for a true RTOS (real time operating system) is even necessary.

Also - superconductors. First off, if you think electromagnetics is hard. Wait until you see solid state physics. The theoretical understanding of superconductors is beyond engineering into pure science. I will say, isquaredR losses on the transmission lines should be minimal. I didn't think you can use superconductors in the transformers! that's where I'd look to put the. When you convert from one voltage to another you need a transformer to do that, and they waste a lot of energy. That's where the losses occur other than sheer utilization. The reason we have them is to keep the system modular. That way the transmission lines are not limited by the mere 120 V in your home.

I just realized, superconductors can't make progress because transmission line theory is falsified.

Something else I didn't think I'd bring up. Cell phones, wouldn't it be nice if our car stereo were a cell phone? Then Bluetooth on a cell phone would be for headsets. Audio streaming? I prefer a USB port and an AUX port. Maybe I sound like Grumpy Smurf.

The wikipedia does not say anything about safeties on guns. Oh dear.

Attachments

Last edited by dnewhous on 2023-06-22, 03:07. Edited 609 times in total.

Daniel L Newhouse

Reply 2 of 164, by darry

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
kolderman wrote on 2020-07-22, 01:07:

> The Turtle Beach Santa Cruz - this thing was the basis of audio support on the original Xbox so it does matter

Was it?

The Turtle Beach Santa Cruz was based around the CS4630 chip . AFAIK, the Xbox first gen audio system was similar to (or based on or the predecessor to) the Nvidia Nforce .

Reply 3 of 164, by Carrera

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

My Denon 1500 has a phono input. So they do exist...
I personally am very wary of the death of physical media in general.
My kids "forced" me to get amazon prime and the number of times a movie they want to watch all of a sudden costs something is very annoying.
Also the surfeit of streaming services means you are constantly taking a hit on cash flow.
I live in Europe but have many DVDs and Blu-Rays (how I wish region.-free HD DVD had won ) and even finding a decent player that can play all formats and regions is getting difficult. It is practically easier to buy a device in the US and have 2 devices than finding one that is easily made region-free. (I am aware of the many devices out there that have been chipped or modded to play it all, for some strange reason I like using codes to "unlock" things more....

My son wants to build a PC and one of my main devices (a video capture device) requries a firewire connection. The mainboard recommended to me doesn't even have PCI slots! (I am sure there are some out there I just haven't looked)...

The future used to look so much better...

Reply 4 of 164, by schmatzler

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Carrera wrote on 2020-07-22, 08:31:

and even finding a decent player that can play all formats and regions is getting difficult.

The easiest way would be getting a PlayStation 3 - put HAN (or HEN for later models) on it and install Webman Mod and voila - you've got yourself a region-free DVD and BluRay player.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 5 of 164, by dnewhous

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Blockbuster. They are technology. Blockbuster started to go downhill when they said they couldn't rent game consoles anymore.

Last edited by dnewhous on 2020-07-25, 07:37. Edited 1 time in total.

Daniel L Newhouse

Reply 6 of 164, by Zup

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Nobody talks about standard batteries being substituted by (not standard) rechargeable ones?

I still have digital cameras that uses AA batteries and a mp3 that uses AAA... but I know that my (better) Philips mp3 will be junk when the battery fails.

I have traveled across the universe and through the years to find Her.
Sometimes going all the way is just a start...

I'm selling some stuff!

Reply 7 of 164, by dnewhous

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I like Rayovac batteries by the way.

DTS owns Ibiquity which owns HD Radio. DTS Neural Surround I suppose would be the choice? Doesn't have the same ring as "broadcasting in Dolby". If I were an announcer saying "broadcasting in DTS Neural Surround" it just doesn't have the same ring to it. Also, the only formats with surround sound are DVD-A and SACD which are advanced engineering audio formats which have never caught on that well. You can't rip those formats. Wav file does have 5 channels in it, but is limited to 96 kHz and SACD takes 384 kHz. Can the wav file be cranked?

Neural Surround has a stereo source with surround sound playback. Maybe that would be interesting for home theater systems, not so much car audio. The intent is to broadcast in low bit rate (compared to CD) and do ... geez I've been up all night with jock itch. Well, basically a 100 kpbs ac-3 stream. That's a bit low. What's the encoder? Maybe AC-4? It depends on the bit rate. Nokia would lose their licensing fees.

Also, tough actin' tinactin. When you are really infected you need this stuff.

I do remember, when they drop the analog broadcast the digital bit rate will increase significantly.

Last edited by dnewhous on 2020-09-11, 19:05. Edited 3 times in total.

Daniel L Newhouse

Reply 8 of 164, by ShovelKnight

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Canon was the only legacy camera company that handled the great AF transition of the 1980s well. Minolta abandoned their old lens mount they used since 1960s but they still used mechanical focus coupling and mechanical aperture control. Nikon and Pentax both kept their old lens mounts which seemed a good decision at the time but even now the majority of Nikon SLR lenses still use the same old mechanical aperture control. Because of this, Canon is the only legacy camera company that has full and seamless compatibility between their SLR mount (EF) and their mirrorless mount (RF), and the adapter they use is just a tube with a bunch of contacts. In comparison, Nikon's expensive FTZ adapter is a useless piece of junk that is only compatible with a fraction of their lens catalog.

Reply 11 of 164, by schmatzler

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
ShovelKnight wrote on 2020-07-22, 19:20:

Nikon and Pentax both kept their old lens mounts which seemed a good decision at the time but even now the majority of Nikon SLR lenses still use the same old mechanical aperture control.

That's actually a plus. I have various old lenses from the 70's and 80's and I can still use them on my current Nikon camera. Even the manual lenses that lack any autofocus functionality.

Bad for Nikon, because they don't make money if people just keep their lenses for decades, but good for me.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 12 of 164, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
dnewhous wrote on 2020-07-22, 00:05:
not a good idea ideas: […]
Show full quote

not a good idea ideas:

removal of phono input on home theater receivers

For generations phono inputs on home stereo amps and receivers provided the RIAA playback curve. This was eliminated, now turntables have to get outboard preamps
and connect to AUX, destroying the vinyl revival.

To be fair, many audiophiles would rather have dedicated phono preamp than supposedly mediocre phono preamp in an AV receiver.

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 13 of 164, by darry

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2020-07-23, 15:38:
dnewhous wrote on 2020-07-22, 00:05:
not a good idea ideas: […]
Show full quote

not a good idea ideas:

removal of phono input on home theater receivers

For generations phono inputs on home stereo amps and receivers provided the RIAA playback curve. This was eliminated, now turntables have to get outboard preamps
and connect to AUX, destroying the vinyl revival.

To be fair, many audiophiles would rather have dedicated phono preamp than supposedly mediocre phono preamp in an AV receiver.

From what I have seen of some mass market, modern and inexpensive turntables, they tend to have an integrated pre-amp, uneven platters and are bundled with extremely crappy cartridges that require something like 9g of VTF .

Full disclosure: I am not a vinyl lover in the sense that I have no nostalgia or affection for the format's limits/flaws . I prefer my sound to be as close as possible to the studio masters . That said, I will use vinyl if something I want is unavailable on a lossless digital medium (theoretical scenario so far, but I do have a Technics SL-Q2 ready for that eventuality).

Last edited by darry on 2020-07-23, 16:00. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 14 of 164, by ShovelKnight

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
schmatzler wrote on 2020-07-23, 12:48:
ShovelKnight wrote on 2020-07-22, 19:20:

Nikon and Pentax both kept their old lens mounts which seemed a good decision at the time but even now the majority of Nikon SLR lenses still use the same old mechanical aperture control.

That's actually a plus. I have various old lenses from the 70's and 80's and I can still use them on my current Nikon camera. Even the manual lenses that lack any autofocus functionality.

Bad for Nikon, because they don't make money if people just keep their lenses for decades, but good for me.

Well, for most current Nikon cameras this compatibility is very spotty - they can't even meter properly with manual lenses. In fact, you get better functionality (e.g. aperture priority and full matrix metering mode) using manual Nikon lenses on Canon cameras, unless you pay for one of Nikon's top-end bodies 😁 Nikon's "old" AF lenses that don't have the built-in motor also autofocus only on select Nikon cameras.

In contrast, every Canon EF lens works perfectly on every Canon EOS camera. Canon was so prescient that they even included distortion correction information into the EF lens protocol. You can use the earliest EF lenses (released in 1987-1995) on modern Canon cameras with full functionality (AF, IS, automatic distortion correction). There are no Nikon lenses made in 1987 that work with full functionality on all current Nikon cameras.

Reply 15 of 164, by ShovelKnight

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
darry wrote on 2020-07-23, 15:57:

From what I have seen of some mass market, modern and inexpensive turntables, they tend to have an integrated pre-amp, uneven platters and are bundled with extremely crappy cartridges that require something like 9g of VTF .

I'm heavily into vinyl and there are literally no decent new turntables under approximately $1000. And if somebody is willing to spend $1000 on a turntable, they probably can afford a quality phono preamp as well.

Reply 16 of 164, by Standard Def Steve

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
dnewhous wrote on 2020-07-22, 15:03:
Also, the only formats with surround sound are DVD-A and SACD which are advanced engineering audio formats which have never caug […]
Show full quote

Also, the only formats with surround sound are DVD-A and SACD which are advanced engineering audio formats which have never caught on that well. You can't rip those formats. Wav file does have 5 channels in it, but is limited to 96 kHz and SACD takes 384 kHz. Can the wav file be cranked?

Just joking about broadcasting in Neural Surround. The intent is to broadcast in low bit rate (compared to CD) and do ... geez I've been up all night with jock itch. Well, basically a 100 kpbs ac-3 stream. That's a bit low. What's the encoder? Maybe AC-4? It depends on the bit rate. Nokia would lose their licensing fees.

Now I see, after receiving surround sound in Dolby, the head unit itself can process DTS Neural Surround for 2 speakers.

Also, tough actin' tinactin. When you are really infected you need this stuff.

I do remember, when they drop the analog broadcast the digital bit rate will increase significantly.

Sure you can do bit-perfect DVD-A rips. That 96 KHz @ 5.1 is a limitation of the DVD-A spec itself. Even MLP-compressed 5.1 at 96 KHz can creep up to around 8.5 mb/s. 192 KHz would be twice that, which is beyond what a 1x DVD player can manage. That's why 192 KHz is only available on the stereo tracks (which, btw, rip just fine to 192 KHz WAVs). Compress them with FLAC, and they're half the file size.

I believe BD-A can do the full 192KHz on 5.1 tracks.

I don't own any SACDs, but I believe they can be ripped as well. They wouldn't be bit-perfect rips like DVD-A, due to the nature of the beast (SACDs use a DSD encoding scheme, which would have to be converted to PCM, whilst DVD-A is already a PCM based format), however Foobar2000 can convert DSD to FLAC.

I haven't subscribed to any kind of TV service for years, but I remember most stations broadcasting AC3 at 384-448 kb/s, which is the same as most DVDs. That was during the bad old MPEG-2 days; they've probably switched to E-AC3/DD+ at a lower bit rate since then. However, E-AC3 is twice as efficient as regular AC3. Netflix somehow manages to fit decent sounding 5.1 @ 192 kb/s! I've actually felt Netflix content hit around 20 Hz (the pressurized room and pant leg flapping sensation is what gives it away). E-AC3 is a damn efficient codec, probably even better than AAC in that regard!

Last edited by Standard Def Steve on 2020-07-23, 16:13. Edited 1 time in total.

P6 chip. Triple the speed of the Pentium.
Tualatin: PIII-S @ 1628MHz | QDI Advance 12T | 2GB DDR-310 | 6800GT | X-Fi | 500GB HDD | 3DMark01: 14,059
Dothan: PM @ 2.9GHz | MSI Speedster FA4 | 2GB DDR2-580 | GTX 750Ti | X-Fi | 500GB SSD | 3DMark01: 43,190

Reply 17 of 164, by Intel486dx33

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

I have an old Yamaha 7.1 HTR-5960 A/V receiver with all kinds of old inputs and it still works well today.

Look at this on eBay
Yamaha HTR-5960 7.1 Channel Digital Home AV A/V Theater Receiver

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Yamaha-HTR-5960-7-1- … 2cAAOSwavZe2w1w

I also have a NEW 65” 4k TV ( Vizio M-658-g1 ) with great picture and every input/output you can think of.
It works great.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/reviews/vizio-65 … ith-hdr/6345460

Reply 18 of 164, by darry

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
ShovelKnight wrote on 2020-07-23, 16:07:
darry wrote on 2020-07-23, 15:57:

From what I have seen of some mass market, modern and inexpensive turntables, they tend to have an integrated pre-amp, uneven platters and are bundled with extremely crappy cartridges that require something like 9g of VTF .

I'm heavily into vinyl and there are literally no decent new turntables under approximately $1000. And if somebody is willing to spend $1000 on a turntable, they probably can afford a quality phono preamp as well.

A used Technics SL-1200 is about half that in US dollars and I have seen them locally for much less . Even if you need to pay someone to lube/clean it, it's still a better deal, IMHO .

Reply 19 of 164, by ShovelKnight

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
darry wrote on 2020-07-23, 16:15:

A used Technics SL-1200 is about half that in US dollars and I have seen them locally for much less . Even if you need to pay someone to lube/clean it, it's still a better deal, IMHO .

I'm currently running a used setup that cost me over €2.5k, and I would have to spend close to €10k to get something new in the same class, so yeah, used is the way to go in this case.